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Meditations

Clucking things up in Van City

So far, it’s taboo in Vancouver. But, you can do it in Seattle, Portland, and New York. And even in Victoria, Burnaby and New Westminster. Get your minds out of the gutter. I’m talking about raising chickens in your backyard.

If the City of Vancouver gets its way, the concept of farm-to-table eggs might not be such a wacky idea. Last week, city councillors voted unanimously to investigate changing city bylaws to allow Vancouver residents to keep chicken coops in their backyards. Issues on the table include the possibility of avian flu outbreak, noise and smell concerns, and an increase in the coyote population.

I say huzzah for backyard chickens. If you’ve ever tasted a farm fresh egg, you know what I’m talking about. And if you have kids, what better way to teach them where their food comes from than to actually show them?

Actually, never mind the kids. This would be an important step in bridging the mental gap that exists for a lot of city dwellers: the separation of what you eat, and where it comes from. Maybe more people will start to respect food and food producers. We can only hope.

It is a great idea. The “issues on the table” are laughable. The avian flu is a much more significant risk in factory birds, a couple of chickens in clean coops don’t smell and people have a strong incentive to keep coyotes out of the cages. It is too bad society approaches food issues from a backwards perspective. Factories should have to prove they are better environmentally, nutrionally, etc, not the other way around. Food policy aside, these are awesome chicken coops- http://www.omlet.us/products_services/products_services.php

Listening to CBC R1 on the way home and they were talking to the gen manager of Fairchild Television, Winnie Ho. She said that 90% of their callers were totally against it:
– dirty/filthy/attract other unclean animals
– Vancouver is a cool city, why hurt market value of land with chickens?
– 2010 is when the world will see Vancouver. Many of the Asian callers said it wasn’t cool. No way.

Yikes.

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